Webcast Equipment - Latest Guidelines

Is the webcast communicator still available and is that the recommended way to go if you do not have an existing capable PC? Need to order equipment, install and test it prior to BYU Young Ambassadors Fireside in May. Any recommendations and tips would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Gary Graham

ggraham wrote:Is the webcast communicator still available and is that the recommended way to go if you do not have an existing capable PC?

Post #18 from this thread says that the webcast communicator is no longer available because it is too expensive. If you do not have an existing capable PC, purchasing a new PC that is capable will still be less expensive than the communicator.

lajackson wrote:Post #18 from this thread says that the webcast communicator is no longer available because it is too expensive. If you do not have an existing capable PC, purchasing a new PC that is capable will still be less expensive than the communicator.

Actually, the post you referred to says that the webcast receiver is no longer available. I have heard nothing about the communicator being discontinued. The communicator is the device that encodes and transmits a local event to the CHQ servers. The receiver was one of the ways that could be used to receive a webcast from the servers.

danpass wrote:Actually, the post you referred to says that the webcast receiver is no longer available. I have heard nothing about the communicator being discontinued. The communicator is the device that encodes and transmits a local event to the CHQ servers. The receiver was one of the ways that could be used to receive a webcast from the servers.

You are correct in that detail. Still, based on the cost of the communicator last time I checked, I believe a stake could get two or three capable PCs for the same cost and run version 3.0 of the Church software. I would certainly be worth looking into, and there are several threads in this Building-to-Building Communication Forum that discuss the pros and cons.

We will need to make the jump before October, and the PC path is the way we are looking at the present, mainly due to cost. As a relatively new stake, we have no money for any of this, so cost will be the driving factor.

lajackson wrote:Post #18 from this thread says that the webcast communicator is no longer available because it is too expensive. If you do not have an existing capable PC, purchasing a new PC that is capable will still be less expensive than the communicator.

While the store may not have offered it, for a while both Are avaible, and are the recomended solution, but it is a local decision on what you decide to use, hardware or software, and cost will certainly be a factor.

Yea, I wanted to go the PC route but my FM guy says to go with the Communicator which he is ordering for us, so that is what we will be setting up as soon as it comes in.

Gary

We have been working with the software for a couple of months and had nothing but problems. I am unaware of any guidelines about the required speed, amount of ram, ports needed, required interface devices, nothing. I am also unaware of the things that must be done in the operating system to make sure that screen savers are turned off, shutdown of video and hd are turned off. All the things that make this software installable (i.e. 64bit drivers, etc) seem to be unavailable. After much time and effort spent (mostly on our own) we were able to get the beta version running reliably. Then we were required to punt. The pc that we had been working with was going to be in Phoenix the night of the broadcast. I contacted the av person (a friend) in another stake because I knew they used the communicator box. He agreed to let me borrow it for the evening. We got it setup and working without problems in about 10 minutes. I even got a wireless keyboard, mouse and a monitor hooked up to it with no problem.

Bottom line - if you don't have pc people as your av support people don't try it. We had 4 of us (all very knowledgeable pc people) and it was a bear. I would like to see better tech support for the pc software too.

harrismeh9 wrote:We have been working with the software for a couple of months and had nothing but problems. I am unaware of any guidelines about the required speed, amount of ram, ports needed, required interface devices, nothing. I am also unaware of the things that must be done in the operating system to make sure that screen savers are turned off, shutdown of video and hd are turned off. All the things that make this software installable (i.e. 64bit drivers, etc) seem to be unavailable. After much time and effort spent (mostly on our own) we were able to get the beta version running reliably. Then we were required to punt. The pc that we had been working with was going to be in Phoenix the night of the broadcast. I contacted the av person (a friend) in another stake because I knew they used the communicator box. He agreed to let me borrow it for the evening. We got it setup and working without problems in about 10 minutes. I even got a wireless keyboard, mouse and a monitor hooked up to it with no problem.

Bottom line - if you don't have pc people as your av support people don't try it. We had 4 of us (all very knowledgeable pc people) and it was a bear. I would like to see better tech support for the pc software too.

Wow. I have been using the beta version of the software and haven't had any problems. I recently had a problem with connecting to the server this past week, but updating the software from Microsoft and from the church cleared everything up.

I plan on putting it on my new system that my stake has purchased.

Terry